Merrill Edge

I use several Brokerage trading platforms and Edge is easily the worst. Not intuitive, slow and some info not even accessible. The website is far batter and it is one of the weakest websites among major providers. Simple things are hard to do. Let’s say you enter an order, what do you want to do next. I like to go back to a portfolio view. How do you do that? Either there to four back button presses or “trick” it by going to research and then to account. Can’t I just press account? Nope, that does nothing. Now I want to see the status of my order. Obviously I can do that from a portfolio view, right? Or balances? Or activity? Nope, you have to back out of your account view, click on a whole separate menu and scroll down to find order status. These are basic functions and are poorly handled in the app. The trading platform itself lacks basic functions too - can’t really handle fractional shares, can’t do simple things like roll a call and trades take forever to close out. Other providers are much better. Only reason for the second star is the right integration with BofA but I’m not sure it is worth it for that anymore.

I’ve been using all the major brokerages and I assure you Merrill is by far, the worst. 1) merril customer service is filled by a bunch of idiots who clearly know nothing about brokerage service or industry. I asked to close and transfer out one IRA account and asked it be done the very day. The idiot rep didn’t understand what that meant and I had to explain to her over 1+hr call. Eventually by the time her associates got around to it the order was delayed and executed the day after, resulting in considerable losses in my portfolio 2) Merrill promotions were disingenuous at best. Every other brokerage facilitate accounts based on SSN and balance, with Merrill you need citizenship as well. Funny this wasn’t outlined in any pamphlets prior to my money brought into the system. This kind of cheating behavior is why Merrill’s reps have such bad reputation as swindlers. 3) Merrill edge app itself is terrible and doesn’t sync well with other BoA apps. The interface looks to be something designed by a highschool dropout over a long weekend, and the backend interface for linking across accounts is so terribly designed one wonders why they even embedded the function. Seriously do yourself a favor and move your money out to reputable brokerages and save yourself the hassle of wasting hours upon hours of chat with account reps clueless about their own industry, profession, and company services.

I make 1 to 5 stock trades a week, but I am not a day trader. I’m also a Platinum Honors client with balances at Merrill and it’s sister bank BofA. I have been extremely pleased with the BofA mobile banking app and so I thought the Merrill Edge app would be just as good. Sadly, it is not. Here are the hits and misses. ~~~Negatives~~~ - This Merrill app is slow. I mean SLOW. I have an iPhone X on a T1 internet connection and so the problem is not on my end. - Stock prices do not refresh in real time. You must manually refresh the screen each time you want a current number. - Most indicators you would use when considering to buy or sell a stock (RSI, MFI, ADX) are not expressed as a number. Instead, you are forced to guess at the actual values from a tiny line graph. ~~~Positives~~~ - You can see the balances of all your Merrill/BofA accounts (checking, savings, credit card, brokerage, IRA) in one place. - Transfers from your brokerage account into your BofA checking/savings account are made in real time. No 3-day lag. - The user interface is generally easy to view and to navigate. ~~~Conclusion~~~ This Merrill Edge app is average as compared to its peers. It is below average as compared to BofA’s mobile banking app. The app’s biggest drawback is it’s speed (or lack thereof). It is suitable if you are the average investor, just looking to check balances or make a stock trade from time to time. However, if you are a more active trader and volatility and price swings are a concern, this app is not the correct choice for you.